Help: Decent income being lost to debt

MyopicMoo

Reducing grocery costs doesn't necessarily mean shopping at Aldi or Lidl (unless you want to), our monthly shopping is about £250 for 2. It could be cut further. Main shop is at waitrose (essentials range is great) and meat from our local farm shop. We do tend to eat vegetarian during the week which helps, and have got very good at stretching cheap meals.

bloodofareptile

I'm going to tell you to keep the cleaner! Husband and I are also high earners, have got a fair amount of debt, and are aggressively paying it off... and we've still kept our cleaner. It's not worth the stress - we aren't naturally neat people, but I like the house being clean! It might not be very MSE, but boy am I less stressed.

Honestly, you have the money - even if you could stick to your estimates, you'd be paid off quickly (even while doing foreign vacations - I'm an ex-pat and we do one major trip back home every year). If you make some of the adjustments others have suggested, you're golden. (As a side note, we spend under 250/month grocery/household/etc shopping for the two of us and don't set foot in an Aldi! It's all meal planning, as I'm picky about what I'll eat.)

Best of luck!

tiff

How much are those 3 foreign weddings going to cost and can you afford to go to all of them?

S_AND_I

bloodofareptile wrote: »

I'm going to tell you to keep the cleaner!

My missus will love you for that! As will my son who grew tired of chewing nasty tasting things from who knows where. I'm sorry but the girls that whizz around the house do a better job than I could do in a month - giving me extra time to think how to save/make money!:rotfl:

Oneday77

Water meters can be removed if they end up costing you too much.
You can afford to live life so enjoy the weddings. However instead of using the CCs to pay, save up and only spend your cash.
Energy wise inest in an energy meter for the house, you will be amazed at how much power some rooms take to light and the TV don't get me started

S_AND_I

tiff wrote: »

How much are those 3 foreign weddings going to cost and can you afford to go to all of them?

Gulp. Greece - still totting up whether flying out in a weekend with a hotel overnight will actually cost more than getting a package deal.
Chicago - eh, $1k for flights, accomodation etc. Basically have saved half my bonus for the flights and hopefully will have made enough savings etc by Oct for the rest. Could save £300 having a 18 month old opn our laps but not sure if we'd survive.
Pakistan - £1.5k on flights probably, but then no costs there as can stay with family.
So, loads, but this money saving, paying off debt is part of the reason we're doing this. And unfortunately it's famil/best friend so can't miss them.
Any tips on how to keep any of these trips cheap though, more than welcomed.
Plus we haven't been on holiday since Jan 2008 so we're gasping for an excuse to go abroad - just have to find the money somehow without derailing all our efforts.

S_AND_I

Oneday77 wrote: »

Water meters can be removed if they end up costing you too much.
You can afford to live life so enjoy the weddings. However instead of using the CCs to pay, save up and only spend your cash.
Energy wise inest in an energy meter for the house, you will be amazed at how much power some rooms take to light and the TV don't get me started

Thanks, Do you know if there is a list of average energy use/costs for TVs, washing machines, dishwasher etc?

WASHER

I'm too going to say keep the cleaner, you can afford it, you have a huge surplus each month, I know your SOA isn't fully complete, but you have over £1K surplus, life is for enjoying, repaying debts is difficult and can bring difficulities in itself, a cleaner isn't going to make a huge difference to your debt free date.

You could double your min repayments and still have a healthly surplus. Start a spending diary on Excel and see where the surplus is going.

Dropping a brand is a great way of reducing your grocery bill, I found I couldn't go from Sainsbury/tesco finest to value range, the difference was too much, I spend £400 per month for 4 and 2 very fussy cats on groceries and we eat well on quality food (I'm debt free btw now), I can't for the life of me get it much lower, heck I've tried but my husband works long hours and in a very stressful job, he deserves a good hearty meal on his return. What I'm trying to say, because one thing works for one person doesn't mean it will work for you. Find a level you are comfortable with and within your means and stick to it, it won't make a huge difference if your debt free date is pushed back by 6 months cause you to make life a little more comfortable by having a cleaner or having the very occassional take away.

tiff

I know you said the weddings are family/friends and I wont keep on about it but really if you want to clear the debt maybe one of those weddings at least will have to go? My DH missed his brothers stag weekend in Barcelona because we were in debt and really couldnt afford it. You can say no, you know.

Re giving up the childs seat on the plane, dont do it. You couldnt go all that way with an 18 mth old on your lap, well I couldnt anyway lol.

S_AND_I

WASHER wrote: »

I'm too going to say keep the cleaner, you can afford it, you have a huge surplus each month, I know your SOA isn't fully complete, but you have over £1K surplus, life is for enjoying, repaying debts is difficult and can bring difficulities in itself, a cleaner isn't going to make a huge difference to your debt free date.

You could double your min repayments and still have a healthly surplus. Start a spending diary on Excel and see where the surplus is going.

Dropping a brand is a great way of reducing your grocery bill, I found I couldn't go from Sainsbury/tesco finest to value range, the difference was too much, I spend £400 per month for 4 and 2 very fussy cats on groceries and we eat well on quality food (I'm debt free btw now), I can't for the life of me get it much lower, heck I've tried but my husband works long hours and in a very stressful job, he deserves a good hearty meal on his return. What I'm trying to say, because one thing works for one person doesn't mean it will work for you. Find a level you are comfortable with and within your means and stick to it, it won't make a huge difference if your debt free date is pushed back by 6 months cause you to make life a little more comfortable by having a cleaner or having the very occassional take away.

Great you're debt free - everyone on here's so supportive and inspiring - even those that suggest the harsher cuts are just making us think 'do we really need x'. It's about state of mind with us. We got to the point where we were feeling guilty about buying even little things while we had debt. Now we still have debt but we feel good for doing something about it and are more happy to pay for things as we know it's a concious decision. We just need to keep it up!